A Winter Walk Around Town, part ii ~ A Photowalk in Japan

almost 2 years ago

Howdy, good Hivers. Hope you all are doing well. The other day I posted a few photos from a New Years photowalk around my neighborhood. I posted that to Luketu. Today, I share some more shots from that photowalk, this time to my friends in Photography Lovers.

All of these were shot with my zoom lens, most of them zoomed in pretty close. As I've talked about many times on here, I like setting limitations for myself when I take a photowalk. Placing constraints on yourself is a great way to force yourself to try new things—new techniques, new ways of looking at the same old thing. It's a great exercise in creativity.

Anyway, so let's look through some of these shots. I'll give some details about each one.

Pretty old house here. Houses this old usually date from shortly after the war when the government was encouraging people to build from anything they could find. It's hard to tell if anyone still lives here or if it was abandoned. The New Year's decoration above the door would seem to suggest someone still lives here, but that could be from long ago, I don't know. Usually these style of houses are demolished as soon as the old folks who live in them die, but sometimes they remain as abandoned houses.

This is a nice enough river most of the year. It's not really well-maintained or cared for so it does get a little wild looking, but it's a nice sight. The city does send a crew here at the end of winter to clear out all dead trees and brush, then in summer when things start growing hyperactively the same crew will come in every few weeks to clean it up.

You see these handmade windmills everywhere. People make them from standard pet bottles. Just a few cuts, bend the plastic here and there, and you have a pretty decent result. I suppose they must share the instructions of how to do it at the community center, because I see many many old folks making these and putting them in their yard.

Yes, it really is as small as it looks! Cars are, in general, quite a bit smaller here than in the US, and then garages themselves tend to also be smaller, really testing peoples' backing in ability.

A pretty typical street here. Another garage and a covered driveway over on your right. This garage is a bit bigger than the previous one you saw.

Some kind of shop I think. Looks like they make something or other here. But I think they also live above the shop.

Go << way!

I'm not entirely sure what the point of this sign is. The road bends shortly to the left of it, so maybe it's a warning about that?

That mailbox has seen better days.

Stop!

Another pretty typical street. That covered building on the corner ahead was being renovated.

More weird messages painted on warehouses. This one isn't quite as crude as the one I shared in part one. I wonder who Joe is....

You can see they are hanging their futon and laundry out up there. It's pretty common to see folks hanging their futon out everyday (yes, even in cold winter), or at least everyday when the sun is out. You usually see housewives beating at it furiously with a stick to get rid of all the dust or mites or whatever.

A bridge to adventure!

I'll leave you with this guy. Whenever I pass this way I look at him and think of Wilson's greeting from Home Improvement: Hi-dee Ho, good neighbor!

Well there you go. Hope you enjoyed this part two in our photowalk adventure.

I'd encourage you to do your own photowalk. It's a great practice. If it's an area that you know pretty well like your own neighborhood, add a constraint or two like you can only use your smartphone, or you can only use your 50mm lens, or you have to shoot everything with a dutch tilt.

There is a Japanese photographer I like who tapes up his viewfinder and shoots from the hip. That's a fun constraint! He shoots mainly people photography, so doing this allows him to capture people more naturally, but you could try it for anything. You may miss a lot of shots doing that, but you may also get a lot of unexpected surprises.

The point is, figure out some constraint that makes things more challenging. You may be surprised at how doing so knocks you out of any creative ruts and makes you see the world in a while new way.

Have fun! And if you have questions on any of these feel free to ask them.

❦

	David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.